The Cynical Christian

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In the wake of the Parkland, FL school shooting, there’s been lots of anger and vitriol, including some people engaging in America’s hottest new pastime: making fun of religious people. It seems like people are now waiting to pounce on the first person to offer “thoughts and prayers” after a tragedy, and pounce they did after Parkland, taking to Twitter More …

Everybody has been having a lot of fun lately ridiculing not only Roy Moore but also anyone who would vote for Roy Moore. In the process, many have taken advantage of a great chance to show off their exquisitely fine-tuned sense of morality as people who wouldn’t consider voting that degenerate hillbilly now, even though they weren’t going to vote More …

I typically like to comment on the articles I link to, but my only comment on this one would be, “I agree with all of this“: I have long observed that an alarming swath of public evangelicals seems to be driven by a consuming desire to be liked by the world. … To their minds, they are trying to be More …

I’m a big fan of the idea that there is no separation between the physical world and the spiritual world. They aren’t two different things; they’re two parts of the same thing, both equally real. Physical events affect the spiritual world and spiritual events affect the physical world. Anyways, you see what I’m driving at. Recently, my family got to More …

Once upon a time, the Christian church dominated the culture in America. People who really didn’t care one way or the other said they were Christians by default. Our art, literature, and conversations were shot through with Christian references and symbolism. When you spoke of the widow’s mite or the battle of Jericho, you could be pretty sure that everybody knew More …

Here are a few videos to get 2016 rolling in a thoughtful and thought-provoking way. First up is William F. Buckley and Malcom Muggeridge discussing faith and doubt: Next, the Stand to Reason blog asks the question that nags at all believers from time to time, “How do I know if that inner voice is God speaking to me, or just me?”: More …

The Atlantic has an article on St. Lydia’s church of Brooklyn, and it’s shy congregants: …it can be a struggle to be publicly Christian in Brooklyn. She’s talking about a specific class of the neighborhood, of course—historically, the borough has had vibrant Jewish and Catholic communities, and still does today….But in today’s young, progressive, creative-class circles, “all of those cultural More …

Here’s something I’ve been wondering about a lot lately: Is righteous anger Biblical? Some thoughts from the Stand to Reason blog: Anger in itself isn’t a sin; you can be angry about the right things or the wrong things, just like you can love the right things or the wrong things. But mankind never runs short of creative new ways More …

What is it? Well, it’s worse than Stage 1 Exile, I can tell you that. Steve McAlpine explains: In case you missed it, Exile Stage One began a few decades or so ago, budding in the sexual revolution of the sixties before building up a head of steam some 20 years ago. Finally some Christians sat down to talk about More …

If you’re a conservative Christian who suspects that conservative Christians just might be losing the culture war, hide all the sharp objects in your house and let this clear-eyed and terrifying article from Jonathan Last clue you in to just how terrible the situation really is: …the same-sex marriage movement is interested in a great deal more than just the freedom More …

They’re more related than you might expect if this article from the American Interest is to be believed. All I’ll say is that it’s the first article about the state of modern Christianity I’ve read in a while that didn’t make me want to punch myself in the face. I agree that’s not a very high bar, but it’s encouraging nonetheless More …

Bruce Ashford is a professor of theology and culture, which makes it sound like he knows both the Nicene Creed and all the lyrics to “Uptown Funk.” And frankly, that’s exactly the kind of person I want to be hearing more from nowadays. He talks about the importance of Christian engagement with the culture in this brief interview. A sample: …I am arguing More …

Meekness and humility are good things. They’re traits that all Christians spend a lifetime trying to cultivate within themselves. But when I look at the state of Christianity today, I’m afraid that a lot of Christians have come to value those traits to the exclusion of all others. Lately it seems that anytime Christians have a chance to stand up More …

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry has the crazy idea that maybe the changes that Christianity has brought to civilization aren’t all bad. He writes, for instance, about how it revolutionized our ideas about children: Various pagan authors describe children as being more like plants than human beings. And this had concrete consequences. Well-to-do parents typically did not interact with their children, leaving them up to the More …

In this clip our favorite former radical feminist lesbian atheist talks about the value of grace and community in reaching those living the homosexual lifestyle. If you fear that homosexuality is the unanswerable question for the church, Mrs. Butterfield is a tonic. (Via Justin Taylor)

Erick Erickson (yes, that’s his name) says, “Keep Christianity weird“: Christianity is an oddball religion. Our God makes contracts with us. Our God dies for us and lets up pile our sins on Him. Our God tells us not to take revenge, but let him handle it. Our God says karma is a myth and His grace is real. Christianity More …

In the spirit of previous musings on this blog about the nature of “goodness,” here’s a video that asks if there could be such things as “good” and “bad” if there were no God: (Also note that all arguments sound more convincing when made by a person with a British accent.)